-summer 2017 reads-

How are we doing? I hope alright. Between having my thesis done and submitted to examiners and starting a new job I have just about managed to do some reading. I thought I’d share some of the books that I have been loving lately. Guys my summer reads:

It begins as it must with Alice Walker’s The Way Forward is with a Broken Heart. When I started this book last week I just knew I would love it. It is the sort of book you read just a couple pages a day in an attempt to savour it. It is very nostalgic; the sort of book that takes you back in time to your own experiences. As always, Walker’s flair with language comes out strongly in this book that takes us back to civil-right’s era Mississippi. If you are going to pick one book in this list, this is the book.

To go back to the Nazi Germany era, grab Armando Lucas Correa’s The German Girl. Get your coffee of choice, sit out in the sun and let the stories of two young girls entwined by History take you from Germany to Cuba, to New York and then back to Cuba. In this book we can see how people respond to change- in this case change for the worst- and the little things that people cling onto in uncertain times. You will love it.

Similar to The German Girl, the other book in this list is Anthony Doerr’s All the Light we cannot See. I must admit this was quite a hard read to get into and I only got the hang of it a hundred pages or so in. Set in the 2nd World War, the book follows the lives of blind Marie and Walter. Again, uncertain times, how people circumnavigate them and the things that keep them sane.

After the two ‘heavy’ reads above, you want something to bring you laughter and cheer which means poetry of course. I give you Rupi Kaur’s Milk and Honey. Kaur’s work is up there with Nayyirah Waheed’s Salt and Yrsa Daley-Ward’s Bone. One thing that this amazing poets share is their ability to communicate so strongly and accurately that which most of us experience but have no words to express. Here is one piece from Bone that I just love:

You must have known/ you were wrong/ when your fingers/ were dipped inside me/ searching for honey that/ would not come for you

Such brilliance! I highly recommend getting -and gifting- these three books. Words that will speak to you in a profound way.

Finally, pick up The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. I must admit I read this book last year for the first time but I am repeating it this summer because you can’t have enough of fucking Diaz. He is just awesome! This is exactly how I would like to craft my recollection of childhood book that I am working on now. As you guessed this is a story about Oscar, his family and his friends in the States and in the Dominican. You just have to add Diaz to your library.

Of all the books that I have read this summer- and will be reading before fall- I think these are my fave. Happy reading people!